A lack of patience in trifling matters might lead to the disruption of great project.

Balance is the perfect state of still water. Let that be our model. It remains quiet within and is not disturbed on the surface.

Excess and deficiency are equally at fault.

In the Book of Poetry there are three hundred poems, but the meaning of all of them may be put in a single sentence: Have no debasing thoughts.

On matters beyond his ken a gentleman speaks with caution. If names are not right, words are misused. When words are misused, affairs go wrong. When affairs go wrong, courtesy and music droop, law and justice fail. And when law and justice fail them, a people can move neither hand nor foot. So a gentleman must be ready to put names in speech, to put words into deeds. A gentleman is nowise careless of words.

Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.

I have never seen a man as fond of virtue as of women.